Amplia Therapeutics (ASX:ATX) has announced that an additional confirmed partial response (PR) has been recorded in its ongoing ACCENT clinical trial in pancreatic cancer.
The trial is investigating the company’s FAK inhibitor narmafotinib in combination with standard-of-care chemotherapies, gemcitabine and abraxane.
Narmafotinib (AMP945) is an inhibitor of the protein FAK, which is overexpressed in pancreatic cancer and a drug target gaining increasing attention for its role in solid tumours.
The company said the additional partial response brings the objective response rate to 31 per cent, or 17 out of 55 patients enrolled in the trial. It said this compares very favourably to chemotherapy alone, where a 23 per cent response rate was reported in the benchmark MPACT study.
A confirmed partial response is a formal designation of response where tumour shrinkage greater than 30 per cent is recorded and sustained for two or more months and where no new cancerous lesions have been detected.
Amplia CEO and Managing Director Dr Chris Burns said, “We are excited to announce another confirmed partial response in the ongoing ACCENT trial. This latest PR brings the response rate for the ACCENT trial to 31%, considerably better than the 23% reported for the benchmark study of chemotherapy alone. Importantly, our study is still ongoing with 20 patients currently on study.”